Troy Weaver - Witchita Stories

I started seeing ghosts when I was sixteen or seventeen. Not really ghosts, it was the same ghost every time. I haven’t seen him since we moved out of that house, ten years ago, but I saw him a lot while we were there. He hasn’t come looking for me, and I haven’t invested any time trying to locate him, either. I’m okay with that. Little kid ghosts are scary as shit. Toddler ghosts, that takes the fucking cake. I thought I was hallucinating the first time, like, not in a good way, but having a mental break or something. My heart bounced against my ribs. I couldn’t breathe. What happened is I’d fallen asleep on the couch late that night. When I woke up, the TV was still on, and not three feet in front of me there was this kid looking at me, watching me sleep. I jumped up and turned on the lights. Nobody was there. I stayed awake for forty-eight hours straight, constantly looking over my shoulder and listening for the laughter of a child in all the empty rooms in the house.

When the city I extol shall have perished, when the men to whom I sing shall have faded into oblivion, my words shall remain.

Said Pindar.

Said David Markson.

Sometimes you find out about things way too late. Seems unfair, but that’s the way it is sometimes. For instance, a good friend of mine started dating this girl his senior year of high school. She was a real good-looking girl, too. Had red hair and really pale, freckle-free skin, just luminous — one of the nicest people around. And my friend, he was an artsy kind of guy who didn’t shower regularly and had a dad with a flipper arm. Nice people all around, just two different classes coming to a head. She came from a more affluent neighborhood, so they’d spend most of the time they had together at her dad’s house. Well, nothing seemed amiss to my buddy, seemed like a normal family, aside the absence of her mother, who’d died when she was little, and her dad seemed to like him okay. Her older brother had even taken a liking to him. Just like that, it happened. My buddy and his girl were getting things revved up late one night in her bedroom. I mean, the way he tells it, they were going at it hard and heavy. Right when he’s about to come, the door flew open and the light flipped on. Daddy, she said, but her voice wasn’t angry or scared or even embarrassed. Not now, daddy, Kyle’s over. My friend, they were in missionary, had cranked around when the light flipped on. He said, You wouldn’t believe it. Her dad, he was standing there buck naked, and he was touching himself. Didn’t look mad, just disappointed. At first I just chalked it up to him being drunk off his ass or something, you know. But it happened again, a few months later. But it wasn’t her dad this time, it was her brother, same exact scenario. Totally fucked me up, man. After that, I talked her into moving in with me. And even still, sometimes she goes over there to spend the night. And I’m like, Are you fucking kidding me? And she’s like, Well, they’re my fucking family. They’re all I have.

My brother was released from prison today. It took some convincing from my wife, but eventually I called him. I told him, Don’t hate me, but I’ve been writing about you. He said, Hate? That’s not even possible. I’m proud of you. I said, I love you, man. I’ve missed you. He said it back. And I felt it, it pushed on me. I held in my tears the entire two hours we talked. Even when I feel like I feel all this hate in me, I realize it’s just my love with nowhere to go.

I mean, no matter what happens, he’ll always be my brother. He could tear my dick off and throw it out of a speeding car, let me bleed out into the center console while screaming obscenities at oncoming traffic, and I’d love him just as much as I ever have and ever will — and let me tell you, that’s a whole fucking lot, and it’s forever.

Unless they are burned in heaps upon heaps upon heaps in a dying world, our whispers shall remain.

Said I.

Said no one.

It is December. You smell the chimney fires and the cold wind. The last time you heard, it was only ten degrees outside. Most winters around here are like that. You smoke a cigarette and never quite know when you are done exhaling. Your breath leaves ghostly impressions behind you, little reminders that there is a behind-the-scenes machine working overtime for your existence.

I’m six years old. It’s Christmas, my mother’s baking pies, and the presents have all been ripped open and strewn about the carpet in the living room. I’m wearing a Batman cape, ready to take on the day. I’m scoping my brother’s new ThunderCats toys. I like mine just fine, but I always seem to like his things better. He’s got Lion-O in the air, doing somersaults and backflips, kicking the shit out of a GI Joe. The TV is on, playing A Christmas Story or Scrooged or something, my dad snoozing out on the couch. I reach over for one of my brother’s toys, expecting a slap, but he smiles at me, all toothy and sincere, and hands me Lion-O. Here, we can fight the bad guys together, he says. And I truly feel happy. I know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll annoy him. And then he’ll take his toys back and go off to his room alone. I know things will go back to being normal — but I don’t care, especially not now, not in this moment. Things are good, not bad, we are alive and living, not dead, not yet, not ever, so long as we know we’ll live forever, not bad, not good, but together, sealing ourselves, here, with one last joke:

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

You.

You who?

You tell me.

“Baptisms for the Dead” at Hobart

“Disney Vacation” at Everyday Genius

A shortened version of “A Cat Dies” called “Meat” at Short, Fast and Deadly

“Just Rain” at Revolution John

“Riots” at NOÖ Weekly

“Cough Syrup”, “Phone Sex”, and “Collapsible Lungs” at Vol.1 Brooklyn

Thank you: Jamie Iredell, Michael Seidlinger, Ken Baumann, Mike Young, Scott McClanahan, J. David Osborne, and Peter Markus — for your help and guidance and friendship. Big thanks to Kevin Sampsell, publisher extraordinaire, for believing in me enough to bring this book out into the world — and for being an awesome dude and great friend.

Tina Morgan: Thanks for having the great editorial eyes you have. Your suggestions really made things pop.

Bryan Coffelt: Thanks for one of the illest book covers to ever hit a bookshelf.

Ariana Marquis: You are a wonderful publicist. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you.

Chad Droegemeier: Thanks for being the best friend a guy could have. I love you, man. You took some wonderful pictures, and I’m glad they’re right here in my first book.

Mom, Dad, Amanda, Paul, Cherrise, Shelli, all of my nieces and nephews: I love you more than you could ever even imagine and more.

Fran, Randy, Jane, Peter, Mat, Big Liz, and extended family: your support and love are both abundant and beautiful.